Ethiopia

Chris Law Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Duddridge]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work on this issue and on the Foreign Affairs Committee. We are very engaged with our American partners. I attended a meeting last week with Samantha Power and international organisations, discussing this issue. When I was last in Ethiopia, I met the incoming ambassador, and there has been a regional envoy travelling in the area, whom I also met last week. I have had several meetings with David Beasley of the World Food Programme, which we try to work with as closely as possible, although at key points of this conflict, access to the area, rather than actually delivering the aid, was the main problem.

Ultimately, there is no solution without political dialogue. Although the issues that my hon. Friend raises are important, several other actions need to take place as a precursor before we get that food to the people who are starving. It is particularly concerning that people are destroying hoes and farming equipment so that people cannot plant. It is a narrow point; if they do not plant in the next few weeks or months, there will be no crop at the end of the cycle.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP) [V]]

May I first put on the record my heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the families of those murdered by terrorists last week in Afghanistan while in their line of work with the HALO Trust? The attacks were atrocious and cowardly, and the perpetrators must be held to account. These men and women bravely put their lives on the line every day by clearing landmines all over the world.

Most of the 5.5 million people living in Tigray are desperately hungry, and more than 300,000 people are suffering from famine. Starvation causes someone’s body literally to consume itself; their organs shrink, their hair falls out, they convulse and they hallucinate before death. Children are even more at risk; it is reported that 300,000 children are expected to die. Even if aid deliveries were stepped up immediately, the situation will only worsen by September, so how are the UK Government using their relationship with Ethiopia to allow aid organisations access and to alleviate this impending catastrophic crisis?

This catastrophe is unfolding as we speak, and we know the devastation it will cause if we do nothing, yet the UK Government are ignoring both UK law and their own manifesto pledge by cutting aid—including that to Africa by 66%. Will the Government reverse those life-threatening cuts and, at the very least, immediately mobilise sufficient emergency funds to get life-saving aid to the Tigray region?

[James Duddridge]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I would like to be associated with his comments on the HALO Trust, which does excellent work in Africa and elsewhere around the world.

Sadly, the numbers are even worse than those the hon Gentleman cites. Nearly 23 million people across Ethiopia will require assistance in 2021. The vast majority of those, and the vast majority of the increase on the normal assistance, are in Tigray, with 6.2 million of the population requiring assistance.

The hon. Gentleman asks about aid getting through. The process for humanitarian assistance getting through was very convoluted. It has improved, but it is still not sufficient to get the materials through, even if we did have them to distribute. However, that is something we are working on very closely; the famine prevention and humanitarian affairs envoy talked about it, and the ambassador will talk about it when he visits Tigray this week. One of the first people to visit Tigray was our development director, looking at these very issues of gaining access.

Crucial to all this is ensuring that the Eritreans get out of Tigray, to create a situation of stability. I very much hope that the turning point of the elections will be a pivot, where the Ethiopian Government will look again at some of these issues.